


folie à deux

by rei_c



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV Second Person, Second Chances, Secret Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, Wish Fulfillment, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5152412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rei_c/pseuds/rei_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Okay, you say. Okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	folie à deux

_Do you regret it_ , he asks. It's just the two of you at work; others are here, somewhere, but nowhere close enough to hear the conversation even with the open door and way things echo, sometimes, in uncanny directions, bouncing off of carpet and sinking into tile. 

_I regret_ , you start to say, and he scoffs, leans back in his chair and looks away. If you hadn't spent as much time watching him as you have over the last few years, you'd think he was disgusted. It's disappointment in his eyes, though, and something you've never seen before, looks like the very beginning edges of heartbreak. 

_No, listen_ , you say. Cutting him off, demanding his attention -- it's not something you do, generally. You are now. You have to. No matter how uncomfortable it makes you to be this honest, no matter how flayed apart you feel from slicing yourself open for his gaze, his knowledge, you have to. _I regret that it made things awkward. I regret that it's taken us this long to get back to our definition of normal._ You pause, meet his eyes, feel your heart thudding so loudly in your chest you're amazed the earth isn't shaking with the tremors. _I regret the things I didn't do that night. Put my cheek on your shoulder so I could drag my teeth across your neck. Lean back and smile at you, then lean in again, for longer. Put your hands on my hips and then just cling tight the way I want._

You stop there, sure that your face is flushed bright red, and look away from him, down at your hands. _There's more, isn't there_ , he says, quietly. You can't decipher the tone of his voice. You could, you think, if you wanted to. You could look up at him, meet his eyes, read meaning into every twitch of lip and arch of eyebrow. It's something you've always been so very good at. You don't. It's safer not to know what he's thinking, what he means. If you knew, you'd shatter. Again. _Something else. C'mon, you've already said this much. And I think our not talking about it has gone on long enough, don't you_?

You clear your throat, tuck a stray piece of hair behind one ear. It's only after, when your hand drops back to your lap, that you think you should have left it loose, could have hidden behind it. _I regret_ , and your voice shakes, _that I didn't ask to stay._

There's no intake of breath from him, no sign of surprise or shock, but something in the air between the two of you has changed, has grown electric with your words. You wonder if he feels the sparks the same way you do, skittering over your skin, lightning strikes into your heart, your stomach, your cunt. 

_I don't know if you thought I was too drunk or high or tired to know what I was doing,_ you say in a hurry. _But I wasn't. If I had been, I probably wouldn't have run away as fast as I did. I've always been a coward._

 _Not a coward_ , he says. 

You laugh, a high and bitter noise that makes him flinch. _So much a coward_ , you say, tone flat, empty and hollowed out. _It's taken us months to get to the point where we're talking about it. I should have done something, said something, anything, the very next day, not let it fester and tear things between us to breaking._

He gets up, comes around his desk and sits on the front edge of it, no longer using the large piece of furniture as a barrier, a neutral zone. He's close, the tips of his boots touching yours, and you can feel the heat of him, smell his warmth and sweat and the faint curls of smoke that cling to his clothes. He's close, too close, and you could suffocate like this with the way you can't catch your breath, with the way you're so focused on him to the exclusion of even your own lungs and heart. It's always been that like, at least on your side, but now he knows. Now he can see it when he picks up your hand, twines his fingers in with yours. He can feel you shake. He can feel how fast your pulse is fluttering. He can feel how cold and clammy with nerves you are. 

_What else_ , he asks, so soft you can barely hear him. _There's more, isn't there. I can tell._ You look at him, must have some of your doubt and surprise and incredulity tattooed across your face because he smiles at you, one of those blinding smiles that always makes you forget the world. _You may have been watching me_ , he says, _but you never saw me watching back. I know you. Tell me._

You sigh. If he's been watching then you're screwed. You've never been able to hide anything from him. You've never even bothered to try. 

_I remember it, y'know_ , you say, trying to put words together. 

He's rubbing his thumb back and forth over your skin and if he knows you, if he's been watching you the way he says, he knows exactly what he's doing, drawing all of your attention to that slight movement, swipe-up, swipe-down, and turning the rest of you incandescent with fire. 

_The kiss. I remember the way you tasted, like Lonestar and cigarettes. I remember the feel of your stubble on the palm of my hand. I remember thinking that I was_ so close _to you that I could, for the first time, pick out every glittering speck in your eyes. I remember looking at your laugh-lines, etched so deeply into your skin, and wondering if I had a hand in putting them there. You were warm,_ you say. _You hugged me and I thought that I could stay like that for the rest of my life, like your touch is the only thing I need to keep me alive._

 _Your lips were dry_ , he says, startling you out of a memory that has held you in its grasp ever since that night, ever since the split second when you stepped back and then left, unable to stay and see what your action had wrought. _You smelt like all the saltwater tears one person will ever shed in their life. And you left before I could say anything._

You lick your lips, look out the doorway to the empty trailer, dark with the lights out, no movement, no sound. _Coward_ , you say, and it's so soft it might as well be a whisper. _I'm such a coward_. 

He drops your hand and you feel the loss of him like an uppercut, sending you off-balance, three-quarters of the way to knocking you unconscious. He doesn't go far, just closes the door to his office, but it feels like he's shutting out the night, shutting out the world, creating a whole different universe just for the two of you -- like there _is_ a two-of-you when you know that's not true. 

You sit there, dissociated from yourself, one part of you gibbering mindlessly at the thought that he's offered you a hand up, the other part frozen, staring at his fingers. You look up at him, take in his slight smile and the gleam in his eyes, and shake as you reach out, let him take your hand again. 

He pulls you up, sets the palm of his other hand on your hip; you're nervous and falling apart with it so much that you need his steadiness, need the way he always seems to have his feet planted on the ground to keep you from floating away, vanishing into thin air. You lean into him, can't help it, and he lets go of your hand only to pull you close, one hand sliding up your neck into your hair, the other wrapped around you, palm splayed against your back. He's already taken up every inch inside of you; it feels, now, in his arms and so close you can hear his heartbeat, that he's trying to take in the rest of you, make you part of him, somehow, make you his. 

You don't want to tell him that you've been his for years. Ever since the month you met, you've measured every other potential love interest against him. You've dated a few of them, slept with a few of them, but it's always been him in the back of your mind, always the scale that leaves everyone else wanting. There have been times that you've hated yourself for being so addicted to every little scrap of his attention that you don't have any sliver of yourself left for anyone else. 

It's silent in his office. It's your own little _folie à deux_ , air molasses-thick and half as cloying, the only noises coming from heartbeats and shallow breath and the way you hum as he tugs a little at your hair. He holds you, waits for you to calm, like you're a spooked animal trying desperately to break away but too afraid to leave. He holds you and the time stretches out, feels sticky-sweet as taffy, coiling around you and tying you to this moment with a poison-honeyed rope. He holds you and your eyes slip closed against your will.

He waits for you to settle, to give in, and the moment you do, he says, _I regret not going after you._ He doesn't give you time to take that in before he murmurs, _I regret not asking you to stay._

All of your calm disappears as soon as the words register. You pull back from him, loosening the hug but not letting go, never letting go if this is how much you're ever going to get, and stare up at him. You can't believe it, can't believe what he's saying. You wish -- you wish so _much_ for it to be true but he's a good man and you're unstable and he's saying that because he knows it's what you want to hear, not because he means it. 

_It's very kind of you to say that_ , you say, and manage to keep from crying when his arms drop to his sides. _But you don't have to lie. I can handle the truth, you know. If I haven't fallen apart over the last few months, I won't fall apart now,_ which is ten kinds of falsehood. 

You did fall apart, fell apart in a vicious, self-destructive binge that nearly killed you. It took weeks to recover, weeks and prescriptions and therapy session after therapy session where you were so disgusted with yourself for falling apart over a man the way you said you never would you turned to pills and needles and powder, where the shame was enough to keep you drawing patterns in your skin with knives and razors, where the condescending horror you felt towards yourself, your lack of control, your lack of strength, had you searching the bottoms of too many bottles. It wasn't the active and conscious efforts of someone trying to kill themselves but you've come to realise that you weren't doing anything to live and passive suicide is still suicide.

 _I'm not lying_ , he says. _I'm not saying this to make you feel better or to justify how tough the past few months have been or to get someone in my bed that I know would do anything for me, even if I didn't feel the same way. But I do._ You look away; he turns your chin back, makes you face him before he says, _C'mon, look at me._

It takes aeons for you to meet his eyes. You don't want to see what's written in them now, you just always -- forever -- want to remember the way they looked that night, crinkled at the corners, sparkling in two a.m. star- and street-light. 

_I never considered it, before that night_ , he says. _I needed time to come to terms with it, the way you felt, the way I felt about how you felt. You said you'd been wanting to do that, to kiss me, for a long time. I don't know how long it was for you but I needed time. I needed to process. It shook my whole world, you know. I never thought anyone would ever feel about me the way you did. Do, I still hope._

You stare at him. You know this face. This is the face he wears when he's being completely honest, feels close to naked with how much of himself he's baring. This is the face you've only seen once or twice before, when he's been drunk, generally, and saying that no one will ever want him, that he's destined to die alone, that he loves his family so much he would die for them but, no matter how selfish it is, he wants one person that would do the same for him. 

You reach up, slowly, and cup your palm to the curve of his cheek. Stubble under your skin, a small lock of too-long hair falling over your fingernails, and his breath, hitching, as your heart stops beating and everything around the two of you stands still. 

_Yeah,_ you say, hoarse, voice breaking, words like thorns being dragged up from the very centre of your body and cutting you to pieces on the way to your mouth. _I still do._

 _Good_ , he says, and this time when he pulls you close, you tilt your chin up and meet his lips for the first time in months as he tangles a hand in your hair. 

He still tastes of Lonestar and cigarettes. He's still warm. And when you separate, when you have to pant for breath because he's finally realised that you'd rather die than let him go, you look in his eyes and still see the crinkles around them, the sparkling in them. 

_Hey_ , he says. _You should stay._

You laugh, can't help it, and bury your face in the curve of his neck. _Okay_ , you say. _Okay_.


End file.
